Description

Juiced is a racing game, set in the fictive Angel City, that embraces the lifestyle and culture of street racing and tuning, similar to Need for Speed Underground, with slick, fully customizable cars, fast races, gaining respect and betting. The arcade mode offers quick races and in the custom mode you can set up events with unlocked cars and tracks. There are 52 vehicles from known manufacturers to acquire, and the game boasts a total of 7.5 trillion car customization possibilities. To make available all cars, tracks and parts, you need to progress in the career mode, where you build cars and participate in racing events to earn cash and respect. Aside from the traditional circuit and point-to-point races, there are also drag races (sprints) and show-offs with difficult maneuvers requiring advanced driving techniques.

When you achieve acclaim in the career mode, some of the eight racing crews in Angel City will offer a position on their team. Each crew has specific challenges and crew racing introduces additional gameplay elements. You have to organize events by phone, gamble, and race opponents for their cars (pink slip races). The team leader's respect is controlled by the amount of damage given and sustained (distress, which also affects the car's performance) and your personal car collection. In team races, there is a strategic element as you can control your team members' aggressiveness in-game.

Up to six player can race in the multiplayer mode, in which pink slip races, based on the car collection from the offline career mode, are also available. Statistics are organized on a world ranking server, with record times from singleplayer games and a rating based on your online performance. Ratings can be improved by beating higher-ranked players or multiple drivers in a single race.

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Trivia

Development

Juiced was first under development as Lamborghini, with an official license, at Rage Software. The game was to feature the entire range of Lamborghini cars past and present, with help and assistance from Lamborghini's chief designers and technicians. Unfortunately, it was canned six weeks before release when the development studio collapsed. Out of the ashes of Rage’s Warrington Studio, Juice Games was formed.

Meanwhile, the Lamborghini license had been snapped up by Electronic Arts for an unknown project, so the new team was forced to design a new concept for their near-finished game and turned to the street racing scene, ironically with a direct competitor of EA's Need for Speed Underground.

Juiced was to be published by Acclaim. When the publishing company filed bankruptcy in August, 2004, the game was without a publisher, but relatively safe, as it was financed and managed independently by the development funding firm Fund4Games, which held all the rights.

Take-Two made an offer, but Juiced was eventually picked up by THQ for $10.5 million. Although the game was considered finished - there even were some reviews - THQ decided to fine-tune it for another seven months.